Recovery in Need of a Recovery

The Changing Face of Temporary Employment

Temps aren’t just employees who sort mail and answer the boss’s phone.

The work of temping has changed vastly — today 42 percent of temporary workers labor in light industry or warehouses. And there are more of them. The number of workers employed through temp agencies has climbed to a new high — 2.87 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and they represent a record share of the nation’s work force, 2 percent.

Labor groups fret that the trend signals the decline of full-time and permanent jobs with good benefits. But what is happening with temp employment is no sharp break with the past.

Temp employment has traditionally followed the business cycle, though in an exaggerated way. Temps are disproportionately thrown out of work when there is a slowdown, but when the economy starts to pick up — with businesses still wary of committing to making permanent hires — they disproportionately hire temps.

More than five years into a recovery marked by halting growth, many businesses are still adding temp jobs rather than permanent ones. “This is a reflection of business uncertainty, that businesses need to be more responsive, and part of that is keeping their work force flexible,” said Steven Berchem, the chief operating officer of the American Staffing Association.

Mr. Berchem is reluctant to accept the government’s numbers. “Certainly staffing employment has grown, and it has returned to prerecession levels,” he said. “Whether it’s a record is still an open question. Our own set of numbers show substantial growth, but not at the level the B.L.S. has.”

Mr. Berchem plays down the growth and success of his industry partly because the more it grows the more heat it faces. “We still account for only 2 percent of the work force,” he said. “During the depths of the recession, we were much closer to 1 percent. We have never substantially exceeded 2 percent of the work force.”

Photo

David Fields was hired by Conway Freight to work full time in May, but his hours were soon cut to 25 hours a week. He has no health care coverage and is no longer making enough to support his family.Credit
Taylor Glascock for The New York Times

One source of that heat is a worker advocacy group, the National Employment Law Project, which voices dismay about the strong growth in temp jobs. The group is releasing a report Sunday warning that temp work often means a pay cut and can be more dangerous than regular jobs. The report says median pay for temps is about $3.40 an hour less than for the typical private-sector worker. The report also says that 42 percent of temp jobs are light industrial — about twice the percentage of office and administration temp jobs — and has climbed from 28 percent in 1990.

“There is certainly a lot of evidence that many of these jobs are not good on health and safety and other working conditions,” said Rebecca Smith, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project.

According to a study of workers in Washington State published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, temps had substantially higher rates of injuries, especially in construction and manufacturing, than other workers. Moreover, they usually missed work longer because of those injuries — 40 days compared with 27 days for regular workers. Two other studies found that the injury rate for workers on the job for just one month — that is often the situation for temps — is more than twice that of workers employed for a year.

These statistics and some horrific accidents involving temp workers have drawn the attention of David Michaels, the director of the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “We’ve seen over and over again temporary workers killed or seriously injured on their first day at work,” Mr. Michaels said. “When we investigate, we see that most employers don’t treat temporary workers the way they treat their permanent employees — they don’t provide them with the training that is necessary.”

Last week his agency released a guide to employers called “Recommended Practices: Protecting Temporary Workers.” Among other things, the guide urges temp agencies to evaluate the host employer’s work site and to train agency staff to recognize safety and health hazards.

OSHA’s new guide for employerssingles out the case of a 28-year-old man hired as an equipment cleaner at Tribe Mediterranean Foods, a hummus manufacturer in Taunton, Mass. While cleaning a food grinding machine, the temp worker, Daniel Collazo, came into contact with rotating parts and was pulled into the machine and crushed to death.

The agency links his death to the temporary nature of the job. In announcing a $702,300 fine, Mr. Michaels said, “The employer knew it needed to train these workers so they could protect themselves against just this type of hazard, but failed to do so.”

Help Wanted? Temps Get Hired

The hiring of temporary workers has bounced back above its prerecession peak.

million

3

2

1

0

2.9 mil.

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

June

million

3

2

1

0

2.9 million

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

June

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Temp workers do complain about lack of training. Yvonne Jones, a 32-year-old mother of two, who temped for six months at an auto parts factory in Lorain, Ohio, said she received just 10 minutes of training and nearly no safety training when she was first assigned to a spot welding machine.

“I could have used more training,” she said. “Things messed up on the machine all the time.” She noted that the floor near her work station was often wet, and she feared slipping while carrying heavy motors. She said she was suddenly fired several days after she asked to go home one afternoon because of a migraine headache.

Mr. Berchem of the staffing association said worker safety was a priority for staffing firms.

Many employees praise temping, not just employers, he said. Pointing to a survey done by his group, he said 90 percent of temps say temping makes them more employable, and 49 percent say it helped them get their foot in the door for a permanent job.

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But some temps are skeptical there will be a path to permanent work. David Fields, a forklift driver for four months at a warehouse in Gary, Ind., finds temp work less promising than he expected. He turned to temping after the auto parts store where he was the manager closed.

“Temp jobs really don’t do much for you,” he said, complaining about the lack of benefits. “I get only 20 to 25 hours a week — they keep telling me things are going to pick up.” Mr. Fields, 45, had started with 40 hours a week, but now his part-time hours make it hard for him to support his wife, who has returned to school, and their 8-year-old son.

“Everywhere I look for jobs today, it’s all temporary,” Mr. Fields said. “The temporary agencies have picked up all the contracts.”

Mr. Fields would certainly agree with one conclusion from the National Employment Law Project’s report: “Staffing work is one part of a larger story about the declining middle class in our country.”